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SELF-HELP IN TEACHING 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO.. Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA. Ltd. 

TORONTO 



Self-Help in Teaching 

A Study of the Teacher-Learner 
Partnership 



By 
HUBER WILLIAM HURT 

•Ph.D. (Columbia), L.L.D. (Iowa 'Wesley an). 
Author of Building the New Democracy, 
The Handbook for Scoutmasters, Com- 
munity Leadership, A Manual for 
Scout Executives, A Study of 
College Standards in 
the U. S., etc. 



FOR ALL WHO TEACH 

IN 

Home, School, Sunday School, Boy Scout, Campfire, Girl Scout 
and other recreational groups, in Business and in Industry 



H^m fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1921 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



^ H^ ^ 



Copyright, 192 i 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and Electrotyped. Published September, 1921 



SEP 21 I92i 



FERRIS 

PRINTING COMPANY 

NEW YORK CITY 



g)CI.A624455 



CHAPTER I 
GENERAL NATURE OF MENTAL LIFE 

1. Five Avenues for Reaching Others 

2. Meaning 

3. Attention— ** Mind-Set" 

4. Attention Given 

5. Self- Activity 



SELF HELP IN TEACHING 
I 

GENERAL NATURE OF MENTAL LIFE 

Five Avenues For Reaching Others 

All teaching is conditioned upon one individual 
being able to communicate with another. There 
are just five avenues through which one himian 
personality may communicate with or influence an- 
other — sight, hearing, feeling, smell, and taste. An 
outside happening can influence an individual only 
through one or more of these five sets of nerve end- 
ings at the surface of the body. Light with its ether 
waves affects the retina of the eye; sound with its 
waves in the air or other media affects the hair cells 
of the inner ear; pressure, heat, and cold affect the 
corresponding nerve endings in the skin or muscles 
of the entire body; small particles of the object 
sensed make actual contact with the olfactory nerve 
endings in the nose; and similar contacts with the 
taste bulbs in the mouth. Our consciousness of 
things, therefore, results from little nervous currents 
(somewhat analogous to electricity) which flow from 
these five entrances on into the brain, recording 
themselves both there and en route. A teacher can 

3 



4 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

teach history or first aid or ethics only through the 
impression such nervous currents make on the boy 
as a result of stimulating his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, 
or skin. Nothing is more challenging in all the range 
of God's wonders than the ability to communicate 
ideas, meanings, desires, purposes, through inter- 
preting these physical signs. While most of us do it 
and never think of it, to the thoughtful teacher 
the enormity and basic character of the problem will 
appeal with growing force. 

Meaning 

All these sense experiences come to have "mean- 
ing" to one. The smell of food reminds one of 
previous taste, hunger satisfaction, etc., etc. The 
sight or name of a friend calls up the whole com- 
plex of what he means to us. These meanings 
which we gradually acquire, we can signal through 
words or gestures to another, hoping that he will 
"get" the exact idea that we have. The day of 
sign language is by no means past. We are simply 
using mouth and ear signs more and perhaps hand 
and eye signs less than did primitive man. The 
essential problem remains the same. An idea is 
something essentially personal and private. Its 
nature is such that some sign is necessary to convey 
it to another. This, however, is exceedingly difficult 
as among average people the same word does not 
have exactly the same content or meaning. Differ- 
ences often arise, because we are not thinking of just 
the same things or meanings. Among carefully 
educated people even, the same word involves vitally 
different content, i. e.y "blood-poisoning" means 



GENERAL NATURE OF MENTAL LIFE 5 

something vitally different to two people — one hav- 
ing looked it up in the dictionary and another having 
had it. So at the very outset we must recognize the 
enormity of the problem of communicating with 
another personality. With a widened gap of years 
as between an adult and a child, the differences in 
meaning of even the common things of life make 
understanding or teaching very, very difficult. 

Attention— " Mind-Set " 

Mental life is fundamentally a sequence of re- 
sponses to these outside knockings at the five win- 
dows of the soul. The nature of the nervous system 
is such that every experience which enters registers 
its influence, registers it chemically in the nerve cells 
and in the resistance at their branched end contacts. 
Every individual has (or is) a bundle of potential 
capacities and hereditary tendencies awaiting awak- 
ening, awaiting the chance for expression which shall 
build some of these tendencies into habits firmly set 
upon him — yet his life is largely made up of responses 
to outside stimuli which tend to either evoke or 
repress these natural tendencies. Just what will 
interest or attract a boy is at once the product of his 
hereditary tendencies, of the experiences and mean- 
ings he has already undergone and accumulated, 
plus the immediate setting or way it is presented. 
There therefore exists in the mind of any individual 
at any time a very definite ** mind-set " for receiving 
certain things or against receiving certain others. 
This is quite analogous to a wireless receiving instru- 
ment adjusted so as to be "ready," receptive, 
awaiting a certain wave length message. This 



6 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

"mind-set," this readiness to give attention to cer- 
tain outside stimuli may be due to several causes. 

1. Hereditary tendencies of which we may or 

may not be conscious. 

2. Favorable or unfavorable experiences which 

we have had with the things in question. 

3. The very sequence of events, as well as fatigue, 

or hunger, or disease, or sex may encourage 
or repress a stimulus, may cause one to be 
interested or not. 

4. Attention may be deliberate, due to actual 

willing of the individual. Though this is 
fundamentally connected with i and 2, it 
may, under a strong emotional drive or 
urge, be something much more. 

Attention Given 

It should be kept clearly in mind that this "giving 
attention" is fundamentally personal. Attention 
is given by the individual himself. We, of course, 
may and must do things to "secure" his attention, 
but in the final analysis HE GIVES. Of course 
rewards and satisfactions of various kinds may and 
must be attached to attending to the things we want 
him to attend to — and, often dissatisfactions must 
be artificially coupled up with the competing things 
to handicap them. The former, the positive re- 
wards, however, are the stronger. The more remote 
the material or activity is from the child's mind-set 
of the moment, the greater must therefore be the 
rewards, or the emotional urge to be created which 
shall motivate the child to give attention. Sight 



GENERAL NATURE OF MENTAL LIFE 7 

should not, however, be lost of the fact, that action, 
activities, happenings, "things going on" in which 
he may participate may easily overcome the inertia 
of the child's lukewarm interest and actually pull 
him into "the game." Here, of course, may and 
should enter the alchemy of a teacher's skill and 
method. 

Self-Activity 

The mental life of the individual is a mosaic of 
self-activity — things he does, things he sees, things 
he experiences, things he wants, and the way these 
affect him. 

We observe what he does but can only conjecture 
as to what he thinks — his mental life is his own. 
The central aim then of educational effort is to 
elicit or provoke or cause certain relatively perma- 
nent and desired types of response and self -activity 
in the individual. 



CHAPTER II 

FUNDAMENTALS OF THE TEACHING 
PROCESS 

1. The Teacher-Learner Partnership 

2. Class Groups and the Individual 

3. Discipline in Teaching 

4. Multiple Appeal 

5. Expression 

6. Morale 

7. The Social Inheritance 

8. The Five Elements 



n 



FUNDAMENTALS OF THE TEACHING 
PROCESS 

The Teacher-Leamer Partnership 

The teaching process, on which old educational 
theory laid almost exclusive stress, is but one aspect 
of a partnership project. Teaching is one side — 
learning is the other. Teaching sends a message — 
but little has happened, however, unless that mes- 
sage (or part of it) has been received. If the Learner 
meets difficulty, the Teacher must know this and 
must help the Learner to help himself. 

Teacher activity, then, is only significant as it 
stimulates or aids or leads to Learner activity. The 
consciousness of partnership and the spirit of co- 
operation must be actively present on both sides of 
the teacher-learner project. One of the large tasks 
of the teacher is to establish and maintain this rela- 
tionship in which the teacher is the Senior partner. 

Class Groups and the Individual 

While class or mass groups are the common units 
of teaching, it is necessary to keep in mind that 
learning is a purely personal, private, and individual 
reaction. The group may provide competition, 
stimulus, or suggestion — but the individual has to 

II 



12 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

do the learning if any be done. Even if we attempt 
"forced feeding," still he must digest his own food. 

The Laws of Individual differences show the class 
group to be a significant problem. Within an 
average-sized class group made up in the usual 
random way, there is present a wide range of vital 
differences in ability. 

In most groups these differences tend to follow the 
general laws of variation — a few exceptionally strong 
individuals — a few exceptionally weak individuals — 
with the majority of the group distributed more or 
less evenly about a central tendency between these 
extremes. These facts make it all the more imper- 
ative that the effective teacher carefully heed the 
individual character of the learning process and to 
the greatest possible extent make the individual 
the teaching unit. 

Discipline in Teaching 

Artificial discipline has ceased to be a factor in 
good modern teaching. Keep a boy busy — provide 
things for him to do — appeal to his interests — give 
him something of personal companionship and in 
most cases the need for special control measures 
disappears. 

Giving more active boys responsibility and pro- 
viding them an opportunity to participate in real 
things will generally transform a "problem-boy" 
into a most valuable helper. 

A class session unplanned in advance, without 
variety and interest, and moving slowly, invites boys 
to do other things — and some of them generally will. 

However, when a teacher has permitted a situa- 



THE TEACHING PROCESS 13 

tion to get beyond this indirect form of control, he 
should assert himself sharply but good naturedly — 
and thereafter keep order by keeping the group 
doing things. Gymnastic drills and marching tac- 
tics can often restore discipline, if ably done. 

The teacher, however, must be of sufficiently 
strong personality to direct things without recourse 
to authority. Invoking it is a confession that it's 
gone. Boys and girls have a wholesome respect 
for a teacher on whom they can "put nothing over." 

The teacher, however, must be fair, often very 
patient and good natured, but firm and never lose 
his temper in a "pinch." 

Multiple Appeal 

One fundamental of teaching anything to anyone 
is to appeal to him through as many channels as 
possible. If a boy reads something — one set of 
brain cells is involved; if he hears it, another set is 
involved; if he handles or uses the object, another 
set is involved; if he writes it, he involves the arm- 
hand muscle areas and he also sees it; if he speaks 
it, he involves yet another motor area and also 
hears it. 

Sound instruction either of another, or one's self, 
involves the use of as many as possible of these ways 
in order to fix what is learned so that it will be 
retained. 

Expression 

Teaching is not a process of filling an empty or 
partly filled container with facts or figures. 
It is, rather, a process of awakening, interesting, 



14 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

helping the individual to get started and to do 
certain things. 

Since its purpose is to elicit and provoke learner- 
activity, is it not sound sense to encourage and 
secure participation and expression at every possible 
point ? This may and should entirely kill the passive 
attitude on the part of the learner. The moment 
he becomes active, expression enables the process 
of inside growth to proceed by leaps and bounds. 
Thus habits are builded. Thus initiative emerges. 

We have all seen teachers who did all the talking 
and all the doing. Entertaining? Yes — if it was — 
but a poor way to prepare the class groups to take 
their places and do in the world. 

The most skillful teaching gets the group to do the 
most desired things with the least theft of time by 
the teacher. Such a teacher even gets the group to 
point out their own mistakes. 

Morale 

To become conscious of the importance to teach- 
ing, of morale or spirit or attitude or state of mind 
— one has merely to think of the physical results of 
mental states. 

The optimistic, joyous state of mind affects at once 

1. The power and rate of heart action. 

2. The capacity and rate of respiration. 

3. The "tone" of the entire muscular system. 

4. The flow of secretions that aid the digestive 

processes. 
$. The important secretions of the various ductless 
glands and causes them to make their way 
into the system. 



THE TEACHING PROCESS 15 

The opposite states of mind are said even to dis- 
charge active poisons into the system from the 
ductless glands. 

One needs no physiologist to assure him of these 
effects. One's own experience recalls how physically 
sluggish one feels when dejected and unhappy, and 
what crisp muscular and bodily tone is ours when 
we feel "fit" in spirit. 

So vital is this state of mind to the physical and 
mental health of individuals that no grouch or 
temperamentally colorless person can be a construc- 
tive force in the life of others. 

This state of mind has, however, an even more 
significant aspect to the teacher. Men are whipped 
or defeated in their minds — nowhere else. Defeat 
occurs there, not in the outside situations. The 
man or woman who does not in his mind "give up," 
cannot be defeated. 

The joyous, the hopeful, the earnestly eager, the 
affirmative state of mind is, therefore, a physical, 
a personal, and a social necessity. Play and games, 
and a measure of freedom, recognition, and parti- 
cipation build morale. Teaching in home and church 
and school should give enhanced attention to the 
occurrence and maintenance of it. 

The Social Inheritance 

Modem Science assures us that traits or qualities 
acquired during the lifetime of parents are not trans- 
mitted to their children. A father who has learned 
everything about corporation law or wheat raising 
cannot transmit any of this acquired material to his 
child. The child will inherit the capacities of the 



i6 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

parent stock, but must start at the bottom and for 
himself acquire the experience and knowledge which 
the race has accumulated. 

Someone must help him to get it. This passing 
along of the social inheritance is the most challenging 
fact and obligation of our associate life. Almost 
everything of value in our modern civilization — its 
devices, methods, relations, its science, its literature, 
its ideals, its worship — all these must be acquired 
by the new-born citizen from the social inheritance. 

Without them his life would remain on a mere 
vegetative level. Home and Church and School are 
actively concerned with this teaching — this passing 
on of the Social Inheritance. It is probably the 
most basic single phase of human life. 

The Five Elements 

Every real teaching process involves five elements, 
adjudged important in the order named. 

1. The Learner. 

2. Some exact knowledge or experience to be 

acquired. 

3. Some teacher to expedite and facilitate the 

learning process, to help the learner learn. 

4. Certain methods or devices including some 

teacher-learner contact through which the 
joint process is effected. 

5. Results, products, and by-products, else the 

time shall have been wasted. 



CHAPTER m 
THE LEARNER 

1. His Interest 

2. Why Interest the Educatee 

3. His Share 

4. His Self-Activity 

5. His Values and Morale 

6. How to Study 

7. How Much Outside Study 

8. His Physical Health 

9. His Moral Health 

10. His Time 

11. His Recreation 

12. His Future vs. His Present 

13. His Study and Habits 

14. His Life Work 

15. His Potential Parenthood 

16. His Thrift 

17. His Citizenship Through Service 



17 



^III 

OTE LEARNER 

His Interest 

Slow though we have been to recognize it, the 
interest of the learner must somehow be mobiUzed. 
It is the magic key to action. With it, the most 
challenging and surprising things may be done — 
without it, the most elaborate efforts and programs 
are hollow. Without it — one end of the telephone 
is "out-of-order" and the teaching message cannot 
"arrive." The teacher-learner project fails without 
the learner's interest. 

The source of interest (as in part indicated in 
Chapter I) is original nature and tendencies modified 
by the experience of the individual. Interest rep- 
resents desire or "mind-set" of the moment. It is 
profoundly affected by the events which have pre- 
ceded — may be modified by disease or digestion, 
pleasure or pain, "tone" or fatigue until it is far 
removed from original nature and habit. 

Even interests, however, that have seemed estab- 
lished are subject to the temporarily altering influ- 
ences of certain fundamental instincts such as that 
of curiosity, or that for general activity, the sex 
instinct, or the acquisitive instinct. 

It is important to recognize that interest in youth 
19 



20 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

is more elastic than in adults — that the interests 
of the same boy under quite the same external con- 
ditions may vary widely due to internal conditions 
which are often unseen, generally unappreciated 
by adults. 

Up to the point of fatigue, the learner generally 
responds to : 



the new in 


preference 


: to the old 


the unusual " 


" 


" the usual 


the strange " 


" 


" the accustomed 


the unexpected " 


" 


" the anticipated 


the mysterious " 


" 


" the obvious 


action " 


<< 


" inaction 


self -activity " 


" 


" passivity 


(when work is 


to be done this is oft reversed) 


participation in 


preference 


; to looking on 


responsibility " 


(( 


" always following 


things boys do " 


" 


' ' things boys don't do 


some one he likes " 


'* 


" some one he dislikes 


real companion- 






ship 


<( 


" anything else 


encouragement " 


<i 


" nagging 


recognition and 






approval " 


4( 


" criticism 


sympathy " 


(( 


" sarcasm 


his standards of 






value " 


<< 


" those of most others 


his group desire " 


l( 


" adult leader desire 



Why Interest the Educatee? 

Why should the learner be interested — why not 
discipline him? The "good old time" educational 
procedure prescribed a fixed curriculum and "put 
'em through it." Why the change ? Three reasons : 
(i) Awakening to the fact that people are different; 



THE LEARNER 21 

(2) discoveries about the nature of learning; (3) 

fuller discernment of the objectives of democracy. 

I. Awakening to the Fact that People Are Different: 

The immediate consequence of this discovery 

is the realization that they therefore cannot be 

handled alike. The individual becomes the 

unit. Things therefore must be done which 

reach the individual. To what will he give 

best (or any) response? What will interest 

him? 

Note. — The laws of Individual Differences operate wher- 
ever variation is found; which is wherever life or the play of 
natural forces is possible. Individuals, animals, plants of 
a single species will be found to vary in accordance with a 
relatively fixed law. 

1. If the individuals to be examined are taken as they 

run or occur. 

2. If a sufficient number be examined. 

With these limitations, except for very obvious and dis- 
cernible distorting causes — the distribution of abilities or 
qualities tends to group quite symmetrically about a central 
tendency of the group. A few very superior, a few very 
inferior and the great mass of the cases clustered about the 
central tendency. 

X 

XXX 

X X X X X 

X X X X X X X 

XXXXXXXXX 

XXXXXXXXXXX 

XXXXXXXXXXXXX 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 



ID 



22 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

If we tossed ten pennies lOO times and counted the number 
of heads appearing each time we would secure a distribution 
very like the one above. The heights of i,ooo individuals 
selected at random would show a similar distribution. So 
would the chest measures of that many applicants for the 
navy. The number of grains in each head of a i,ooo heads 
of wheat selected at random would obey this same law of 
normal distribution. If, over a period of years, with ample 
cases, the marks of a teacher depart widely from such a dis- 
tribution — either the teacher marks "high" or "low" or 
the pupils are for some reason "poor" or "exceptional," or 
some factor of maladjustment has entered. 

This distribution tends to follow the values of the coeffi- 
cients of a binominal theorem expansion: 
e.g. (a+b)8 =a8+8a' b-f-28a« b2-|-56a« b'-f 7oa* b*-f-56a3 b5-f28a« 
b«-l-8a b'+b' 

These coefficients are: 

I, 8, 28, 56, 70, 56, 28, 8, I. 

This, expressed graphically, follows the same general 
appearance as above. 

For this reason Gauss's name is sometimes associated with 
the curve. By some it is called the curve of chance — as 
chance is itself subject to such law. 

2. Discoveries About the Nature of Learning: 
Modern investigations have revealed that 
(a) Interest makes learning easier. 

The nervous system offers to any 
experience, depending on whether it is 
welcome or not, actual encouragement 
or resistance from within. To do a 
thing when not in readiness causes dis- 
pleasure. To do a thing when in readi- 
ness causes pleasure. 
(b) Interest makes learning more rapid. 

The result of making learning easier by 



THE LEARNER 23 

making it attractive is to make it more 
rapid. With no internal resistance and 
with no conflicting thoughts to arise, the 
student learns with greater speed. 

(c) Interest makes learning more permanent. 

What has been learned can be recalled 
more effectually and can be used after 
the lapse of longer periods of time. The 
reasons are not far to seek. Associa- 
tions made in learning where the whole 
personality was focused on the one 
thing, naturally are more permanently 
builded. 

(d) Interest builds habits. 

What the learner actually does in 
response to teaching effort is vital because 
doing builds habits. Half-hearted, care- 
less response cannot build complete 
habits. Inasmuch as habits result from 
exercise — interest must be operative to 
get these desired habits "started" by 
inducing the early repetitions whose end 
is a habit formed. 

(e) Interest affords motive. 

Some motive — "mainspring like" — 
impels us to action. It is difficult to 
conceive of action without a motive. 
Interest is such an urge to do. 

(f) Interest must sometimes be modified. 

' All interests and all impulses to do are 

, not socially or individually "good." 

, Some must be modified or altered or 

redirected. Substitution is the way to 



24 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

get rid of an undesirable interest. Pro- 
vide something quite as striking as a 
substitute. Make its exercise easy and 
connected with rewards and approvals. 
Try quietly to connect the old unde- 
sirable interest with unpleasurable things. 
Forcibly trying to suppress is poor 
strategy. 
3. Fuller Discernment of the Objectives of Democ- 
racy: 

A true democracy seeks the largest 
growth and fullest initiative of each of 
its individuals. This demands that heed 
be given to the individual and to his 
concerns. 

An autocracy seeking only a docile 
"followship" needs to restrain initiative 
resolutely and put all through one mold. 

Democracy seeks leadership and initia- 
tive and must therefore stimulate and 
encourage the individual to self-expres- 
sion with its resultant growth. Its need 
for interesting: the learner is obvious.^ 



1 Interest as thus proposed does not imply the abdication 
of adult supervision or direction and the blind following after 
rainbow whims. It does, however, mean that activities 
shall be planned to utilize and not run counter to the tide of 
the child's interests. It does further insist that while re- 
straints and redirecting of interests must occur in cases of 
important conflict of interest — yet that these be so managed 
that it may be surely known that some change of attitude 
has taken place inside the boy. Authority or discipline 
invoked without such change in the student's attitude are 
quite certain to breed resentment and estrangement. 



THE LEARNER 25 

His Share 

To bring the learner to a recognition of the fact 
that the teacher-learner project is being operated 
for his benefit solely — is time well spent. 

He must further be brought to realize that this 
educational process can make no progress without 
his actual, active help. 

This may and should involve awakening in the 
learner a consciousness of his own need. 

His Self-Activity 

Education fundamentally is the result of self- 
activity. He thinks what thinking he does, he 
makes what mental associations are made, he builds 
what habits are builded. The responsibility of the 
learner is, therefore, clear cut. He must be active 
in the common tasks and efforts of the teacher- 
learner partnership. 

Wise is that teacher who can enthuse his students 
to activity and who to that end provides opportunity 
and incentive for their full participation in the 
"game" of finding knowledge. 

His Values and Morale 

It is pedagogic suicide to hammer away at results 
without having awakened in the learner a conscious- 
ness of the value of what is being done. Adult 
valuation will not suffice, the subject must be justi- 
fied in the mind of the learner if maximal results 
are to be anticipated. 

This consciousness of value is closely related to 
the maintenance of morale — of sustained interest in 



26 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

the matter in question. The learner must "stick," 
must "keep up steam" and effort, else no progress 
can be made with him. Therefore to elevate his 
experience out of the realm of sheer, colorless 
drudgery (and hence to guarantee his spiritedness) 
the learner expects properly that variety, activity, 
and intelligent care for his state of mind — shall be 
in evidence. 

The learner further needs rewards, recognitions, 
encouragement, and consciousness of progress to 
stimulate his effort and interest. 

He further expects an even-handed and impartial 
justice — a poise of temperament — and a cheerful 
air on the part of those who would really influence 
him. 

How to Study 

While learning must be done by the learner, he 
has been given scant help as to how to study. The 
teacher has not met his responsibility when a task 
has been assigned — far from it. Any adequate 
conception of his service involves helping the learner 
tO;leam. How he may learn is the first aid needed. 

(a) Concentration is the first secret. Thirty 
minutes of concentrated, earnest, zestful effort out- 
weighs hours of scattered, wandering, attention- 
divided time spent on a task. Relative quiet, 
bodily comfort (which includes all such items as 
lighting, ventilation, heating), freedom from inter- 
ruption and the complete mobilization of attention 
are necessary. 

The learner can readily invoke the aid of habit 
here. 



THE LEARNER 27 

Regularity of daily program conduces at once to 
better concentration. Spending the same time of 
the day on the same study activity will generally 
be found very helpful psychologically. 

Incidentally it is sound administration as it meas- 
urably insures getting it done. 

(b) Motive. The presence of a purpose, a motive, 
contributes vital power to the learner in his work. 
This involves the whole significance of vocation 
and aim. Testimony is abundant that undergrad- 
uates who intend to become medical students later, 
taking Biology, give it a different quality of effort 
from those merely taking Biology because it is a 
"required course" which the registrar "wished" 
on them. • 

(c) How. There are, however, specific aids in 

study method which the learner should 
know unless the learning is to be an un- 
conscious by-product of otherwise appeal- 
ing activities. 
I. Doing in connection with learning aids 
learning because it connects the thing 
with motor brain areas as well as with 
sensory or receiving. 
Hearing and seeing (which include being 
told and reading) are potentially pas- 
sive — writing and speaking are active, 
they serve to awaken the individual. 
These "doing" activities rein vol ve see- 
ing and hearing the thing again. 
Where "handling" of the tools or the 
object or its actual use can be intro- 
duced we have feeling and muscular 



28 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

(Kinassthetic) sensation involved as 
well. These motor coordinations can 
be used in learning even the most 
abstruse and bookish material. 
2. The greater the number of areas involved 
the surer the learning. 
Given e.g. the vocabulary of a foreign 
language to learn. 

(a) Read the list thus involving visual 

areas and eye movements. 

(b) Cover the meanings and try to 

write them from memory — peep- 
ing at the original only when 
necessary. 

(c) Then reverse the process and with 

the meanings before you write 
the original word. 

(d) If alone speak aloud each word as 

written. 
What has happened? 

Reading — one visual brain area involved. 
Writing — an arm motor area + another visual 

area; observing the writing. 
Speaking — motor areas for speech + area for 
hearing what was spoken. 
Five areas have been involved and doing has 
helped hold attention. 

Then sixth, if some one will read the words to you 
and you give the meanings from that ** start," all 
these areas are quite completely involved. 

Seventh — It remains only to **use" them in actual 
situations. 

By applying this method to any subject, the 



THE LEARNER 29 

learner can, with the help of his teacher, formulate 
a truly scientific method of study which often 
trebles his learning efficiency. 

How Much Outside Study 

How much outside study the learner should do 
will vary with his age, the subject, and the general 
nature of the purposes involved on both sides. At 
the university level, where power of independent 
investigation is sought, the study and investigation 
are done largely outside, using the meeting time for 
troubles, and methods, and discussion. 

In primary work or in the years below eight rela- 
tively little outside study is expected. 

Again — a Sunday School class, meeting once a 
week, can probably not command very heavy out- 
side preparation. There it is necessary for the teacher 
to teach largely through the actual class session. 

Scout instruction (in some things self -instruction 
and imitation) is on a simpler footing because it 
involves learning to do certain things and the chance 
to try is made available. 

Supervised study for the earlier years is full of 
possibilities for helping the learner develop right 
habits of learning. This procedure assumes, of 
course, that the teacher knows how to do this. 
Supervised study has the ftu*ther virtue of making 
the individual student almost of necessity the 
teaching unit. 

His Physical Health 

The physical health of the learner is also a concern 
of both himself and the educator. Hygienic light, 



30 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

air, water supply, sanitary toilets, recognition of 
fatigue, provision of space, time and encouragement, 
and companionship for play; interspersing sedentary 
work with active exercise or change; watching per- 
sonal cleanliness; watching for contagious diseases 
or signs of strain — these must be part of the teacher's 
program and responsibility. The greater the nimi- 
ber of hours of contact between teacher and learner 
each week, the greater care and supervision over 
health must be exercised. Scout teacher or day- 
school teacher, after getting into close contact with 
the home, shall urge the parents of the learner to 
have him undergo a periodic medical examination. 
The scout plan of "hiking" into the open can 
with physical profit and benefit to morale be utilized 
with boy groups or girl groups. Regular hours, 
careful diet, can be quietly commended by any 
teacher. 

His Moral Health 

The more one thinks about the moral health of an 
individual, the more he is impressed with its close 
similarity to physical health. The same laws of 
regularity, of nutrition, of expression, of morally 
sanitary environment — obtain here. Moral health, 
like physical health, is not a gift — it is a result of 
the way one lives. The teacher is concerned with 
moral health, because the teacher is concerned with 
helping create a balanced product. 

No individual's life can be said to be balanced 
except as religious and moral things find vital place 
in his life. Religious liberty in a democracy of 
course means that the teacher of a religiously hetero- 



THE LEARNER 31 

geneous group can only deal with general moral 
considerations common to all great faiths. How^ 
ever, activity is as vital in morals as elsewhere in 
child life. Companionship with one whose life is 
a good example will quietly effect the most sur- 
prising moral effects. 

Train up a child in the way he should go, but go 
that way yourself — is sane counsel. 

Encouraging the child to active identification with 
the child's own natural religious group certainly 
comes within the range of the teacher's moral obli- 
gation. 

His Time 

The day of an average schoolboy is worthy of 
very careful study. A third of it should be spent 
in sleep; one to two hours at meals; five or six 
hours in school, five days a week; perhaps he spends 
an hour or so daily in work; two hours a week prob- 
ably covers his church contacts — this leaves five 
to ten hours a day of unorganized time. 

What influences operate here? 

The conscientious teacher mightwell in cooperation 
with parent or pastor survey or catalog what influ- 
ences fill this unorganized time. The movie, the 
playground, the vacant lot, the swimming hole, 
the street — all these exert their influence. 

The need for providing attractive, intrinsically 
valuable, organized companionship and leadership 
for these hours is obvious to anyone who respects 
facts. 

Boys will do things. What they do determines 
their habits.' Their habits fix their character. 



32 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Their leisure, therefore (to borrow a phrase from Dr. 
Sneath of Yale), must be "moralized." 

No community, or church, or organization can 
expect a certain type of adult product to emerge 
except as heed is given to what is done by the learner 
during leisure hours. The educational theory here 
proposed urges that the teacher's responsibility 
(with close cooperation with home and church) be 
conceived as extending beyond the mere classroom 
hours to the unorganized time. If this be not done, 
the ** unorganized" influences may easily eclipse 
the results of the shorter, often to-the-youth-less- 
attractive, organized time. 

The unorganized time of the learner has two other 
significant possibilities. First, some of it may and 
should be turned to sound economic and thrift uses. 
Here may easily be laid the sound foundation of 
later wealth by earning and saving. Every youth 
should spend some time in production — though not 
enough to steal his recreation time. This could be 
done in time now wasted. 

The other possibility is through the recognition 
that waste time purposefully applied can rapidly 
advance an individual in the world. 

The hour on the train in the morning, for the 
adult, or the half-hour wait in the barber shop has 
great growth possibilities latent in it. The youth's 
life has similar wastes. 

His Recreation 

The need of every individual for recreation is a 
basic physiologic fact. Even the great locomotives 
are given periods of "rest," it is said, to reduce the 



THE LEARNER 33 

likelihood of crystallization of the metal as a result 
of hammering over the rails. The teacher, or the 
church, or the institution which provides recreation 
for its youth, holds thereby a strategic place in the 
esteem of those youths. 

In an age of almost universally commercialized 
recreation, social institutions like schools and 
churches (and homes) should not overlook their 
great opportunity. 

There are a few general principles about recreation 
which experience has revealed. 

(a) It must attract those participating in it. It 

is not sufhcient that it appeal to the 
adult leader. 

(b) It must not be so much ''supervised" as to 

lose spontaneity. The group should 
participate in planning. 

(c) The group should be relatively homogeneous 

as to size, or sex, or activity, or age, or 
interests. 

(d) Weather permitting, the out-of-doors has a 

potent appeal and benefit. 

(e) It should embody the principle of the maxi- 

mum number of participants and the 
minimum nimiber as mere onlookers. 

(f) While sheer fun and physical activity should 

never be ruled out, a recreational pro- 
gram can embody important educational 
benefits as by-products, e.g., the educa- 
tional * * hike ' ' to some * * zoo ' ' or industrial 
plant. 

(g) Recreation should avoid being negative — it 

should leave the individual with a '* plus " 



34 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

of physical, mental, and moral energy. 

He should not be exhausted by it. 
The morning-after sort of recreation is not 

recreation, but a heavy expenditure of 

previously acaimulated energy. 
(h) Recreation should take careful recognition of 

what its group does normally so as to 

meet their needs. 
(i) it need not, usually should not, involve money 

cost. 

His Future vs. His Present 

While it is true that most educational efforts have 
in mind the future of the child, it is both proper and 
essential to recognize that the child will not wait 
until the future to live, but that he is living now as 
well. The effort to have a child enjoy his future 
may be pressed with such vigor that his stunted 
present will afford no foundation for the rosy future. 
To-day is life as truly as to-morrow can be. While 
we shall be older to-morrow and shall have some- 
what modified interests, yet to-morrow's life and its 
problems, joys, and sorrows are no more real than 
to-day's. One year's life is no more significant 
than another except as we make it so. 

His Study and Habits 

While the old theory of a generalized training good 
for anything **in a pinch," is no longer accepted, yet 
it is true that there are certain habits of attention 
and of method which are undoubtedly established. 

The teacher, therefore, who accepts careless work 
and who does not demand promptness, for example 



^THE LEARNER 35 

- « 
— IS party to the building 6i habits of work which 
may mar character. 

His Life Work 

Every child is faced, at least potentially, with three 
big problems. 

(a) Mastery of his powers and capacities and a 

degree of mastery over nature. 

(b) Development of right working relationships 

with others. 

(c) A vocation — he must select and prepare to 

meet some human need which shall be his 
life's work. 

It is not sufficient that his education should teach 
him about Julius Cassar, or the wanderings of ^neas, 
the binomial theorum or amoeboid life — the learner 
has a right to expect that some of the various teach- 
ing which society aims at him, shall be related to 
these three big problems he must meet. 

Inasmuch as vocation depends on self-mastery 
and relationship with others, the comprehensive 
teaching program of church or home or school should 
interest itself in aiding therein. Activities or things 
to do facilitate self-mastery; while group projects 
exercise social qualities or tendencies. 

It still remains for some teacher in church or 
school or home to further the child's vocational 
interests. 

(a) Perhaps the first thing to do is to keep the 

question alive, reminding the learner that 
he must make such a choice. 

(b) Vocational information (by reading, by excur- 

sions, by acquaintance with men in 



36 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

various callings, by special vocational 
** talks," by personal investigation) 
should be available for every individual. 

(c) While vocational tests are not yet perfected 

to the point of unfailing prediction, yet, 
if available, they are of service. 

(d) Hobbies, avocations. Boy Scout Merit Badges, 

Camp Fire Girls' "achievement beads," 
these, any or all, may be of value alike to 
educator and student. 

(e) Where alternative elective courses are avail- 

able, selection should be made in terms 
of vocational purpose. With older stu- 
dents care should be taken to see that the 
learner meets the requirements for en- 
trance to the next institution he will 
attend. 
Note. — The College Blue Book, Hurt, Chicago, 
makes such data available. 

His Potential Parenthood 

Among the responsibilities which are normally to 
be faced by adults are the duties of parenthood. 
While not conspicuous as an element in most courses 
of instruction, would it not seem sound sense to 
provide each boy or girl with some definite infor- 
mation and instruction regarding these duties? 

Not alone about personal hygiene, prevalent as is 
its non-observance — but infoimation and instruc- 
tion should be given about the larger social responsi- 
bility of those who are the stewards of the race's 
heredity. Even more — and what is more easily 
done — information about the care of children, their 



THE LEARNER 37 

nature and the trends of their development, and 
something about the economic problems of estab- 
lishing and maintaining a home. 

Church or home or school should somewhere meet 
this need and not leave such important matters to 
unweighted chance. 

His Thrift 

The adult who has achieved a competence, who 
has earned and saved to guarantee his solvency for 
old age or for the "rainy day" — must sometime 
have begun to be thrifty. 

The sooner the learner is encouraged to begin 
saving — the sooner he can reap the benefits. 

Simple living, avoidance of competitive "show" 
in clothes, avoidance of personal waste, temperance 
in the use of luxuries (for the production of luxuries 
takes men and material from necessities), saving, 
and paying as you go — such sound business virtues 
cannot be started at too early an age. The follow- 
ing table indicates the need of such effort in the 
United States:^ 



^ While the per capita savings of the United States increased 
from $89.11 in 1914, to $113.45 in 1918 — yet prior to the 
war we were not a nation of savers, as shown by the following 
table of 

THE NUMBER OF BANK DEPOSITORS PER 1,000 OF POPULATION 

Switzerland 552 Denmark 468 New Zealand. . . . 455 

Norway 426 Belgium 404 Australia 400 

Japan 394 Sweden 391 France 362 

Germany 346 Holland 333 England 320 

Italy 232 U. S. A 115 



38 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

His Citizenship Through Service 

Citizenship is fundamentally a matter of attitude 
toward the common good. It involves a readiness 
to think of and serve others as well as self. It 
implies the earnest desire to obey the laws and con- 
scientiouslv protect the interests of the social order. 

Such attitudes and readinesses and desires are not 
accidental happenings — they are the results of meet- 
ing such actual situations and of forming habits of 
meeting them in the spirit cited. 

Service to the community and its members and 
participation in its life is the safest, sanest form of 
citizenship training. It is based on deeds, not on 
words; on habits, not on precepts. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE OR SUBJECT- 
MATTER 

1. Its Sources 

2. Its Appeal 

3. Its Organization 



39 



IV 



THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE ^OR SUBJECT- 
MATTER 

Its Sources 

The subject-matter of instruction is some part of 
the social inheritance — some old or new part of the 
experience of the race. In primitive life this was 
stored in the minds of the adults and was imparted 
by word of mouth. To-day, it is further stored in 
books, in libraries, court records, museiuns, news- 
papers, pictures, telegrams, films, in institutions, 
in buildings, in works of art and engineering. 

The learner has, then, two sources of knowledge — 
his own experience and this experience of others. 
Instruction seeks to make available the experience 
of others with the least waste of time. Substan- 
tially anything on which the eye may fall represents 
actual or potential experience. 

So multiple and interrelated are these sources of 
human experience that no one library or book can 
be a sole source even for a special topic. The effec- 
tive teacher of nature study must, therefore, look 
for material beyond the textbook into the out-of- 
doors; the teacher of science, beyond the book 
theory to the practical applications; the Sunday 
School or religious educationist, beyond his sacred 
text into human life. 

41 



42 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Each is forced soon to see that the most he can do 
is to "introduce" the novice to certain aspects of 
the subject in question. The wise teacher has him- 
self recognized that there are no limits to "more 
knowledge" on any subject. There are, however, 
many types of knowledge which have to be experi- 
enced, not merely read about. Instruction deals 
with how to do certain things in gardening, for 
example — yet actual gardening experience and prac- 
tice are necessary to really acquire the "experience" 
of others. Substantially all skills and active types 
of "experience" are best acquired through activity. 
Indeed, as between active and passive sources of 
"experience," a normal boy's choice is, in general, 
not difficult to predict. The "active" are a safe 
choice. 

Its Appeal 

The Body of Knowledge or Experience or the 
unexplored field must make some appeal to the 
learner. It is not sufficient that the adults account 
it to be of real value; the novice must value it. It 
must either 

(a) be intrinsically attractive; 

(b) or involve an attractive method; 

(c) or be associated with a magnetic personality; 

(d) or be consciously useful; 

(e) or involve immediate, or remoter rewards, 

natural or artificial. 

The more formal and bookish the material, the 

more remote it is from the immediate life interests 

of the learner, the greater the necessity for its careful 

organization. If the subject-matter itself does not 



THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE 43 

intrinsically appeal, then there must be attractive 
methods, magnetic personalities, and more imme- 
diate rewards. 

Its Organization 

Subject-matter should be organized, not so much 
on a logical basis as on a receptive basis. The logical 
interrelations of the material, while pleasing for 
adult contemplation, concern the material alone, 
and do not necessarily take any heed of the learner. 
A body of knowledge properly organized for imparta- 
tion seeks to begin where the student is. 

Details must be subordinated to the general pur- 
pose involved. While they may be accurate and 
related, so much of detail is sometimes brought in 
as to eclipse the main topic — the forest cannot be 
seen for the trees. 

The material must be organized in terms of the 
daily dosage. The time available will determine 
how fully one can "go into" the subject. This will 
be further conditioned by the teacher's motive in the 
course and also by the learner's motive in taking it. 

A book, presenting as it does a page unit — with so 
many days and so many pages in the book — easily 
invites a teacher to a mechanical selection and organ- 
ization of the day's work. An interest unit — a 
functional unit is of course to be sought. This 
demands topical organization, which makes the unit 
of assignment or discussion or activity one related 
whole. This is sound, as association in the mind 
(which is the basis of memory) is not by pages, but 
by ideas that are related to other ideas and to one's 
experience. Subject-matter thus related is more 



44 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

readily grasped — in a measure " predigested. " 
Organizing the matter within an individual topic 
so schematically that its main thread of ideas, its 
contrasts and sequences stand out in outline form, 
is of further aid to the learner. 

This functional unit demands further the use of 
"project" units. These carry the topical idea 
beyond the book treatment and from any and all 
sources follow the lead of the unit chosen toward a 
relatively full grasp of the topic in all its bearings. 

The project is a self-activity method. The child 
becomes the investigator, e.g. of what is bread made? 
Wheat, yeast, etc. Whence come these? And so 
on and on. 

For the average individual, the appeal to the eye 
is the quickest appeal especially with a picture, a 
scene, where the whole thing is presented at once. 
These have an interest appeal, far beyond translating 
the black marks of print on white paper into an 
imagining of such a situation. Visualizing statistics, 
illustrating books, using slides, movies, etc. — all 
these are ways of so organizing the subject-matter 
as to make it more easilyavailable and more welcome. 

Where possible it seems sane counsel to try so to 
organize subject-matter as to afford alternatives 
which may recognize the differences within your 
group, the individual difference in ability, and in 
interest and in motive as well. 

The organization of subject-matter passes quickly 
into the field of method which is treated in Chapter 
VL 



CHAPTER V 
THE TEACHER 

1. Experience a Costly Teacher 

2. Self-Instruction 

3. In Absentia Teaching 

4. The Personal Touch 

5. The Teacher's Fallacy 

6. The Teacher's Character 

7. The Teacher's Ideals 

8. The Teacher's Temperament 

9. The Teacher's Voice 

10. The Teacher's Manner and Appearance 

11. The Teacher's Growth 

12. The Teacher's Recreation 

13. The Teacher's Citizenship 

14. The Professional Teacher 

15. The Volunteer Teacher 

16. The Teacher's Program 



4S 



V 

THE TEACHER 

Experience a Costly Teacher 

As already implied, there are just two sources of 
knowledge — one's own experience and the experience 
of others. 

One can learn by experience not to expose himself 
to smallpox — or not to eat tainted food — or not to 
leap from a sixteen-story building, and so on, but 
the experience may cost one's life. 

Society, therefore, seeks to impart the experience 
of others through some teaching medium, where 
such experience itself would involve either danger 
or unnecessary loss of time for the learner. 

Anything which can ** convey" information or 
knowledge is potentially a teaching force. News- 
papers, signs on roads, streets, stores, nimibers on 
houses, books, pictures, movies, lectures and 
addresses, games and play, work, conversation 
(sometimes) — all these may "teach" one. 

The mother, the members of the household and 
experience are one's first teachers. 

School and church and various social officers, 
continue the effort. Boys teach other boys, and 
adults do the same. In ancient Sparta, this was 
developed to that point that each Spartan helped 

47 



48 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

teach the boys through the games. There is, how- 
ever, one very vital Hmitation and real danger to 
such "promiscuous" education. 

A boy may be taught that the earth is flat or he 
may be given perverted personal notions — the teach- 
ing has not been accurate. 

As Josh Billings phrased it : 

Better not to know so much as to know so much that 
ain't so. 

Teaching, therefore, to be of value must have the 
authority of truth, of accuracy, of thorough knowl- 
edge of what is being done — else it is a case of "the 
blind leading the blind." 

Self-Instruction 

Books have made possible self -instruction — 
although all that the individual really does is to 
mechanically assign himself tasks and see that they 
are accomplished. 

In Al)sentia Teaching 

In reality the writer of the book is the teacher. In 
literature, in science, one is learning from the great 
minds of the past through "in absentia" teaching. 

A step nearer efficiency, however, is the corre- 
spondence course which, while "in absentia," yet 
does maintain correspondence relations and discus- 
sions of difficulties and checking of work. 

The Personal Touch 

Yet when all is said none of these "makeshift" 
transfers of experience can have the power possessed 



THE TEACHER 49 

by a real, magnetic, strong, yet sympathetic per- 
sonality involved in helping the learner learn. 

A vivid personal narration of a battle charge 
"over the top" amid the thunder of a barrage is 
vitally different from even a vividly written descrip- 
tion of it. It is one step nearer reality, or at least 
seems so, because of the presence of the one who 
had the experience. 

How different are Cicero's orations stutteringly 
translated by lines or words — how different from 
the fierce invective which made him feared on the 
floor of the Senate. The teacher then can, through 
his own personal contact and experience with the 
material, make the knowledge more real and vibrant 
with life. 

That teacher who enables the learner to come no 
nearer to really seeing or experiencing the thing in 
question, has really contributed little beyond what 
the book provides to-day. 

The Teacher's Fallacy 

The fundamental fallacy of most teaching is the 
smug confidence that it is ''going over"; that it is 
really reaching the learner. A quiet youth facing 
the teacher with seeming attentiveness, may be 
wondering if "teacher" dyes her hair or may be 
thinking of "camp" and the old swimming hole. 

The assumption of interest and attention, and 
the consequent dropping of means to effect both 
naturally, constitutes the gravest danger in teaching 
next to sheer ignorance and colorless personality. 



50 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

The Teacher's Character 

One is disposed to affirm that character is the 
most important element in a teacher. However, 
the make-up of the effective teacher must be bal- 
anced. Excellent character with neither knowledge 
nor skill is no more to be encouraged than is training 
and erudition without character. 

Consecrated ignorance and trained obliquity both 
fall short. 

Certain it is that no one should be permitted to 
teach youth unless their conscious and unconscious 
influence is sound and unmistakably for good. 

The Teacher's Ideals 

A teacher cannot safely be merely negatively 
"good" in the sense of doing no wrong. He must 
be actively moral. He must have vital moral con- 
victions, and dynamic ideals — else what he is will 
speak louder than what he says. 

Since character is caught, not taught; since it is 
habit and doing rather than precept and believing — 
the teacher must be a person of high dynamic ideals. 

The Teacher's Temperament 

The temperament of the teacher must be buoyant, 
his spirit must be optimistic and the general tone of 
his personality must be affirmative. 

Temperament may be defined as mood wnich has 
become habitual. Recognizing that one's tempera- 
ment is no single, big, heavy, mysterious thing, but 
rather is a group of social habits, one must recognize 
that temperament is not hopeless. Like any habits 



THE TEACHER 51 

they may be replaced by other habits, provided the 
new things are done. After a time these new things, 
at first done deHberately, become easier and easier 
and finally quite natural. Among myriad social 
qualities which a teacher needs — the following list 
should certainly find place: 

Optimism, hopefulness. Appreciativeness. 

Good nature Sympathy. 

A sense of humor. Consideration. 

Tolerance. Reverence. 

Justice. 
The teacher dare not be "egocentric," but must 
have a deep interest in and time for things that his 
students enjoy doing. He must be ever ready to 
serve and to help others help themselves. 

The Teacher's Voice 

The voice is the chief vehicle for communicating 
with others. Indeed, with the exception of writing 
and of various facial and other gestures, modern 
communication depends conventionally upon the 
voice. 

The quality of the voice, its tone, its loudness 
can awaken resentment or sympathy or fear or dis- 
trust or confidence. 

A high-pitched or nasal or loud or rasping voice 
makes others restless. A little, weak, forceless, 
unheard voice, fails to reach and thus falls short of 
its necessary control of the situation. 

The teacher's voice should be elastic; it should be 
mellow and musical; it should quite readily reflect 
enthusiasm or serenity, joy or sorrow; it should 
indicate good-natured yet resolute reserve power; 



52 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

it should speak with sufficient speed to hold interest, 
yet not so rapidly as to fail to reach ; it should be so 
handled that clear enunciation results. A quiet but 
adequate voice tends to make things clear — a loud 
voice makes them vivid or eclipses them entirely. 

It is scientifically possible for any teacher thus to 
improve his voice and make of it a vital asset. 

The Teacher's Manner and Appearance 

Quietness of manner and inconspicuous dress well 
become the teacher, or any other well-bred person. 
There is the soundest psychological ground for such 
simplicity and moderation, though artistic elements 
and individuality need by no means be sacrificed. 
Show or extremes or egotism tend to distract atten- 
tion from the topic to the teacher and are therefore 
taboo. 

Courtesy is so valuable a tool or weapon or defense 
that it should never be relinquished even when dis- 
ciplining an overt wrongdoer. It begets its like. 

Poise, even-temperedness, and other evidences of 
self-control and self-mastery are towers of strength 
in all himian situations and especially so for the 
teacher. When things "go wrong" one does not 
have to ''go with them." The individual who 
courteously "keeps his head" always has the 
advantage. 

The Teacher's Growth 

In life there is no "standing still." One must 
move either forward or backward. Events and 
problems move with such speed that failure to grow, 
in itself means falling behind. 



THE TEACHER 



53 



Growth is the natural law. It is a social obliga- 
tion. The desirable citizen does not hide his talents 
in a napkin, but develops them for use. The child 
experience is growing by leaps and bounds ; so is the 
environing world: — only a growing teacher can 
sympathetically inspire. The sound educational 
philosophy of Dr. W. H. Kilpatrick affirms that 
"activity should lead to further activity," which 
means growing on and on toward perfection. 

Perfection is relative, and the possession of poten- 
tial abilities is an obligation to get them "into the 
game." The late William James estimated that 
ninety per cent of us never realize more than one-fifth 
of our possibilities — or, expressed in other words — 
ten cylinders, two working; ten fingers, using just 
the thimibs ; five rooms in the house, four closed up 
tightly. 

Growth for a teacher means reading; means 
encountering new ideas, new people, new situations; 
means study; means service in the community. 
Such active open-mindedness is a guaranty of keep- 
ing the spontaneity and joy of living and learning 
and doing, and will keep one out of the rut. 

The Teacher's Recreation 

Recreation or at least change of activity is a 
periodic physiologic necessity. Only thus can the 
wastage of body tissue be replaced. 

The principles of recreation affirmed in Chapter 
in in the main apply here. - It does seem intelligent, 
however, to urge that the teacher's recreation may 
well keep close to the kind of recreation his students 
like. The teacher's recreation can thus be a means 



54 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

toward bridging the gap of years between himself 
and the child. This is especially true when the 
teacher can find some of his recreation through care- 
ful companionship with youth. Because of the 
usual "indoor" quality of teaching — active games, 
outdoor projects, hikes, etc., have health as well as 
recreative value for the teacher. 

The Teacher's Citizenship 

Because one is a teacher in a community is no 
justification for his becoming a hermit, a sort of 
social island. Church, various social groups, com- 
munity citizenship and service projects, indeed good 
movements generally, have an inherent claim upon 
his support. 

Experience has revealed, however, that it is 
important that the teacher of non-homogeneous 
groups shall bring to his various community rela- 
tionships a spirit of broad tolerance toward com- 
peting organizations rather than a spirit of in- 
elastic partisanship. The latter spells ultimate 
conflict. 

Back of all such community contacts, the teacher 
must have a broad, tolerant respect for others. He 
dare not be disloyal to his ideals, but he dare not 
follow the traditional "Orthodoxy is my-doxy, 
heterodoxy is your-doxy." Scouting sets a sound 
standard of respect for the convictions of others in 
matters of custom and religion. 

The dynamic desire to serve modestly yet effec- 
tively the common good (rather than be served) 
through these community contacts will tend to 
steady one from the dangers of partisanship. 



THE TEACHER 55 

The Professional Teacher 

In terms of averages, the professional teacher does 
not exist, as investigations have indicated that the 
average time of service of teachers was five years. 

While this is true, there yet remains a very conr 
siderable body of men and women who have delibT 
erately selected this as their life's service and in 
spite of inadequate salaries and shifting tenures of 
office, still serve the nation through its youth. 

The post-war conditions are such that the demand 
greatly exceeds the supply of trained, experienced 
teachers. This has naturally and will continue to 
react favorably on the salary situation. 

The sentiment in favor of a national Secretary of 
Education with a place in the President's Cabinet 
is bound to enhance further the position of the 
educator. The offerings of commerce and industry 
have so greatly exceeded the paltry offerings of 
many communities that the exodus from the pro- 
fession has become critical. 

Meanwhile the readjustments of teachers' salaries, 
though tardy, have been widespread. 

Whether or not the teachers should combine and 
coerce society into paying adequate wages remains, 
however, a divided issue. Many regard this as 
beneath the dignity of Social Workers of the grade 
represented by the teachers. 

From the viewpoint of the individual teacher, 
the solution of his problem lies in his own further 
training, until the service he renders comes to be 
as distinctively technical and professional and 
expert as that of a good physician or oculist. While 



56 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

such graduate training costs much of time and 
treasure, it is the master-key to enhanced efficiency 
and, therefore, to potential advancement. 

Service of such quaHty will increase the joy in 
the work and the educator's self-respect at once. 

Those who find it impossible to go to the centers 
for such professional training can secure surprising 
quantities of it from reading and home study, corre- 
spondence and other forms of university extension. 



The Volunteer Teacher 

A surprisingly large and significant part of the 
world's teaching is done by volunteer or non- 
professional teachers. Indeed, most of the home 
teaching, covering life's most impressionable years, 
is done by individuals only a very negligible per- 
centage of whom could be said to have had pro- 
fessional training. 

To face facts fairly one must recognize that 
thousands of those hopeful young women, who 
annually pass from High School into rural and even 
"town" teaching could not be accused of having 
had professional training in how to teach. 

A large percentage of those starting to teach 
music, dancing, art, expression, dramatics, athletics, 
etc., are not professionally trained in the science or 
technique of teaching. 

These, however, are classed in the "professional" 
group as they follow their teaching as a calling. 
They have an economic motive for becoming effi^ 
cient. The relatively untrained teachers in the 
home find teaching one vital aspect of parent- 



THE TEACHER 57 

hood which should impel them to become more 
efficient. 

The truly volunteer teacher, however, is one who 
follows some other calling and who teaches during 
leisure time and without compensation. 

The vSunday School teachers of Protestant denom- 
inations, the "Scoutmasters" and special teachers 
of the Boy Scouts of America, the "Guardians" of 
the Camp Fire Girls, the "Captains" of the Girl 
Scouts — these represent true volunteer groups, who 
render truly significant service to the social order 
during their leisure time. 

Their training and insight into the nature of the 
"teacher-learner project" is problematic. They 
have little time (or so believe) and many of them 
are doing their work under the resultant protest. 

The organizations mentioned have instituted 
training courses, but these are short and not always 
fully attended. There is oftentimes a heavy turn- 
over in personnel, so that the training problem is 
perennial. 

The thought is urged here that a very sound way 
to hold a man's interest in such teaching is to give 
him all possible understanding of its basic problems 
and of how to maintain the interest of the learner. 

The volunteer teacher who has endeared himself 
to a group of student comrades can often be held 
by their appeal. 

Probably the greatest need of these volunteer 
teachers (as of all who try to teach) is knowledge of 
the needs, attitudes, interests, and "boundaries" 
of the learner. Brief volumes, such as this one, 
which seek to meet that need — should prove helpful. 



58 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

The Teacher's Program 

There are certain scientific phases of the teacner's 
program which concern any who seek to teach. 

1 . The obHgation to know something of the indi- 

vidual student, his antecedents, his present 
status, and something of his desired future. 

2. A definite knowledge or decision of what the 

teaching seeks to accomplish or, in other 
words, what the objectives are. 

3. A Plan or Program for accompHshing these and 

seeing that this is expedited. 

4. Means of checking outcomes or results of the 

teaching to see what has happened and 
also to see how improvements can be 
made. By-products are often as signifi- 
cant as the direct results. 

Note. — The careful teacher will never expect a continuous and uniform 
rate of learning even within one individual. 

Learning seems to go by leaps and then to run along on a dead level 
for a time — followed by other spurts and other level plateaus. 

The effecting of the necessary associations in the mmd are indeed roughly 
analogous to digestion. Time is essential. 

Then, too, when a boy is growing two inches in six months, we can, 
perhaps, be patient if he does not effect an equal growth in his studies. 



CHAPTER VI 
METHODS 

1. Vital Modem Educational Principles 

2. Conflicting Problems of Method 

3. The Thermometer of Teaching Methods 

4. Play 

5. Competition 

6. Dramatization 

7. Project 

8. Apprentice 

9. Experiment 

10. Observation 

11. Demonstration 

12. Recitation 

13. Lecture 

14. Book Study 

15. Scout Instruction 

16. Religious Instruction 

17. Business Instruction 

18. Industrial Instruction 

19. Political Instruction 

20. Civic Responsibility 



59 



VI 
METHODS 

Vital Modem Educational Principles 

Successful methods are conditioned upon the 
facts and principles of mental life. Modern Science 
has established certain basic facts which vitally 
effect teaching method. Among these are the 
following : 

1. Adult Aims Differ from Child Aims and Interests. 

The experiences of the two have been so 
different that this is inevitable. The adult 
alone can bridge the gap of the years between 
himself and the child by retracing his way back 
to the interests of the child. The child cannot 
go far beyond his own experience without help. 

2. Learning Is the Vital Part of Teaching. 

Learning is not a passive but an active 
process. It is self -activity, and expression, not 
repression, is the key to growth. The learner 
must participate in the actual activities he 
would master. Learning is so vital a part of 
the teaching process that unless it be present 
there has been no real teaching. 

3. Learning Is Best Done Under Conditions Most 

Lifelike. 
Learning by doing, activities, applications 
61 



62 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

of theory, living of ideals and precepts — all 
these functional methods are superior. 

4. Interest Makes Learning Easier, More Rapid, and 

More Permanent. 

What one wants to do is made easier because 
of the actual readiness and expectancy of the 
nervous system itself. Motivation is, there- 
fore, basic to activity. 

5. Individual Differences Demand Different Treat- 

ment. 

Quick and slow, bright and dull, cannot justly 
be treated alike. Therefore homogeneous 
groups simplify the problems of instruction and 
reduce waste. They further make the prob- 
lem of interest easier. 

6. The Things We Do Build the Habits Which Fix 

Our Lives. 

Pleasiu-able activities tend to be welcomed 
and repeated and hence to be fixed. Habits, 
however, weaken through disuse, and if found 
unpleasant (or made so) are avoided and 
replaced by others. 

7. Group Motivation, Group Loyalty, Social Spirit, 

Citizenship, can only come as the result of 
activities demanding the exercise of such group 
qualities. 

Modern education is quite largely individual 
and only incidentally or accidentally social. 

8. Education Seeks to Modify and Change the Indi- 

vidual and to Give Him Something New. 

This can only be intelligently done if the 
student be carefully inventoried before and 
after. 



METHODS 63 

It is as important to know what one starts 
with as it is to know what one purposes to do, 
and both are essential if one is interested in 
checking up what the results may have been. 
9. A Democratic Concept of Education demands a 
chance for individual self-realization. 

This means stopping attempts to grind out 
all alike — accepting only the one, the teacher's, 
as the best method. It means the actual en- 
couragement of initiative and growth of latent 
capacities. The aim must be "The growth of 
Everybody, helped by Everybody, for the good 
of Everybody." 

Conflicting Problems of Method 

There are certain conflicting problems of method 
between which the teacher must effect a balance in 
the planning of his work. 

1. Thoroughness vs. Speed. 

Too great stress on either means loss in the 
other. 

2. Interest Projects vs. Fixed Course of Study. 

If the lines of the student's interests are 
solely followed, what of the objectives to be 
attained, and vice versa? This present con- 
flict may lead ultimately to an elastic and 
individualized course of instruction which 
seeks growth, whether by the mastery of set 
curricular facts or not. 

3. Initiative vs. Direction. 

A balance must be established between the 
teacher's direction; his seeing that it is done 
just "so" as to method and the free sponta- 



64 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

neous initiative of the learner. The latter 
must doubtless be much more encouraged 
than in the past, though the suggestive help 
of the teacher's experience has place. 

4. The Present vs. The Future. 

The teacher thinks in terms of to-morrow's 
man; the boy thinks, probably first, of to- 
day's pleasure. Neither can **get an3rwhere" 
without recognizing the other's interest. 

5. Play ?;5.Work. 

In effecting this balance, it is of value to 
remember that oftentimes the line between 
play or work is how we feel about it! While 
it has been suggested that ideally each should 
include the maximtim of the other, there is 
sound physiologic ground for insisting on 
ample play activities as such. In work, the 
morale element mentioned is the key to output. 

6. Theory vs. Practice. 

The traditional danger of the schools has 
been the emphasis of theory, often to the 
exclusion of practice. Each must, however, 
supplement the other in any balanced effort. 

7. The Cultural vs. The Vocational. 

This once serious conflict is less intense, with 
the recognition that vocational preparation is 
itself cultural and that in the broad sense any- 
thing truly cultural or truly "growth-looking" 
must have vocational value, for it helps 
develop a stronger individual. 

8. Drill vs. Growth. 

The traditional practice of school ** drill" is 
being tempered with the concept of growth 



METHODS 65 

^^^h. its consequent greater freedom to the 
learner. 

Here again, sane balance will avoid the 
danger of either extreme. 
9. Actual Content vs. Verbal Form. 

Ideas without grammar may seem preferable 
to grammar without ideas — neither is effective 
— neither is necessary. 

Form is necessary to give content currency. 

Live teaching insists on both in balanced 
measure. 

10. The Serious vs. The Humorous. 

Both have valid place. An excess of either 
kills interest. A sense of humor and not tak- 
ing one's own self too seriously is an asset to 
any man. Probably the safest balance is to 
mix them tactfully as lean and fat, then lean 
and fat. 

The danger in either lies in the "overdose." 

11. Active 7;5. Passive. 

In practically all learning active methods 
involving things to do are superior to the 
passive. 

Here, however, the fatigue point must be 
carefully watched. 

12. Suggestions vs. Orders. 

The same fundamental conflict of teacher- 
direction or self-direction and initiative enters 
here. While prompt obedience to orders or 
commands is desirable if not essential, yet, 
suggestion is to be encouraged as operating 
more largely from within. Encouragement 
and criticism offer the same problems, one is 



66 



SELF HELP IN TEACHING 



formal, direct, potentially disheartening — the 
other, while indirect, is yet productive of 
natural enthusiasm which can then be used 
to effect needed changes. 



The Thermometer of Teaching Methods 

In the light of the influence of interest upon learn^ 
ing different methods of teaching may very properly 
be rated in terms of their 
interest value to the learner. 
Such a rating would in- 
clude (See illustration) 

In any such rating the ver- 
bal, formal bookish methods 
naturally will occupy the 
bottom and the spontane- 
ous, the active methods will 
be at the top. 

Indeed, such a scale con- 
stitutes a methods ther- 
mometer for the individual 
teacher to evaluate his own 
teaching. Play will head 
' the Hst and books bravely 
bring up the rear. 

It is significant for the 

teacher to note how rapidly 

the action fades out toward 

f the lower half of the scale. 

Nevertheless, each method has its own particular 

values and limitations ; probably no one method can 

safely be used in all kinds of situations. 




•— 


I. Play 


..- 


2. Competition 


•— 


3. Dramatization 


— 


4. Project 


>»«» 


S. Apprentice; 


— 


6. Experiment 


— 


7. Observation 


— 


8. Demonstration 


... 


9. Recitation 


— 


10. Lecture 


.^ 


II. Book study 



METHODS 67 

I. Play 

The "play-way" of teaching has developed in 
response to the recognition of the part of morale, or 
spirit, or interest in getting children to do things. 
Since the vital line between work and play is the 
way one feels about it, the "play-way" is sound. 

The possibilities of original use of this method are 
almost unlimited, as almost any game may be 
adapted to educational uses by varying its content 
so as to involve nimibers, geographic relationships, 
facts of biblical or other history, etc. The game of 
authors does this for literature and may itself be 
varied to use other contents. 

Games truly educational are those which, while 
playing some game, involve the practice or applica- 
tion of the knowledge or skill in question, as for 
example, "Hare and Hounds" involves the scout 
subject of Tracking. 

Scout baseball may be adapted to any content 
whatever and in fact is a "play-way" of recitation. 
It is played with two teams of nine (more or less) 
and an umpire. The pitcher, instead of "pitching 
a ball," pitches a question, and if the umpire decides 
that the batter fails he is "out" — three such "outs" 
retiring the side. If the imipire decides the question 
to have been answered by the "batter," he goes to 
"first base." He is "advanced" to "second base" 
by the next "batter" who reaches "first/*, scores 
being "forced" "home." 

Concerning the "play-way" it is generally true 
that its effectiveness decreases with student's age. 

With younger pupils and the traditional methods 



68 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

of instruction, actual play intervals often counteract 
fatigue and benefit the ** program," provided the 
play does not deviate so widely from the topic of 
the following period, that undue time is spent getting 
back "on the track." 

The "play-way" spirit is often made nearly 
unavailable by the unwillingness (or inability) of 
the teacher to recognize the little lateral mental 
excursions which the lively child-mind makes. 

The gruff (or worse, the sarcastic) rebuke to "stick 
to the subject" often so alienates the child that he 
has no desire whatever either to stick to the subject 
or to please his teacher. 

It is perhaps fair to urge that unless the attitude 
of the teacher be warmly sympathetic and party to 
child interests, no games or devices can maintain 
child spontaneity. 

2. Competition 

Competitions have an almost universal appeal. 
To measure brains or skill or strength with another 
attracts almost all normal boys and a large per- 
centage of girls. 

Individual competitions with others or against 
one's own or some other "records," group competi- 
tions with their potential social values so well used 
in Scouting — all these may be introduced into nearly 
every type of teaching situation. The old-time 
"spelling match" merely represented the element 
of individual and group competition introduced into 
a simple spelling recitation. Similar results may be 
obtained in other subjects. 



./ METHODS 69 

J. Dramatization 

Too little educational capital has been made of 
the keen imaginative activeness of children. 

Anyone who has been with children much has 
found them ** playing house," "playing" animals, 
"playing" school, church, concerts — "playing" the 
things they have seen in adult life. In elementary 
education a lesson may be dramatized — or a song; 
in Scout first aid "carrying and bandaging" may 
be made more real if the results of a "play-real" 
situation are described and the patients then treated; 
in Sunday School a pageant brings home the his- 
torical facts in question. Even old folks frequently 
enjoy the "play." 

In dramatization, however, the principle of as 
many as possible as participants is sound. 

4. Project 

The "project" method departs from page units 
to interest units. The subject-steps, even the sub- 
jects themselves, are suggested from within the class 
group itself, rather than being "handed down" by 
the teacher. 

With younger pupils, for example, a "self-propel- 
ling" line of reasoning can be easily started by some 
such query as to what constituted the breakfast 
menu, and then as individual but related projects, 
the students will "look up" and make inquiries as 
to where and how oranges are grown and how they 
are transported, etc., etc. 

In such "projects" the child is pursuing knowl- 



70 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

edge on his own initiative and developing qualities 
of independent investigation at an early age. 

Graduate research in the university is the same 
inherent method. 

5. Apprentice 

The apprentice method of teaching while under a 
certain industrial onus is in reality a very effective 
method of learning by imitation while actually par- 
ticipating in the actual life situation. 

Its chief industrial danger lies in the fact that it 
easily ceases to be a means of education and may 
become a form of industrial exploitation. Teachers 
in England, many Scoutmasters in America, 
mechanics in Germany, opera "understudies" in 
France or Italy, learn through apprenticeship rela- 
tions. 

Dean Schneider's Cincinnati "part-time" plan is 
an educational utilization of this method of actual 
imitative learning. The two weeks in school fol- 
lowed by two weeks in active service has been found 
to bring a valuable balance of results. 

6. Experiment 

Reading books about firebuilding, or craftsman- 
ship, or typewriting would never establish the ner- 
vous connections necessary to actually do the things 
in question. These can only be builded by actually 
doing the thing in question. Reading the statement 
that sulphuretted hydrogen gas introduced into a 
solution of copper nitrate would produce a heavy 
precipitation of dark blue copper sulphide is a pretty 
large verbal load and perhaps somewhat difficult to 



METHODS 71 

remember. However, when a lad has tried it in the 
laboratory he is much more certain to remember 
what happens. 

He further learns how to use the materials in ques- 
tion and thus comes to be better "prepared." 
Experiment attracts the boy, for example, because 
he has a chance to manipulate and do things — a girl 
experimenting with her first cake has the same oppor- 
tunity. Experiment is learning by doing generally 
under conditions that can be relatively controlled. 

y. Observation 

The secret of the great teaching value of travel 
lies in its opportunities for observation. Tree hikes, 
flower hikes, bird hikes, are definite little tours of 
specialized observation. 

Observation is at present about the sole means of 
arriving at any knowledge of how to deal with men. 
The salesman, for example, observes how certain 
men react to his advances and thus learns how to 
deal with men. 

Various kinds of educational excursions enable 
one to "observe" what is going on there. Observa- 
tion is the learner aspect of demonstration and is a 
fundamentally active process depending upon the 
learner's interest. 

8. Demonstration 

Where realities in real setting cannot be 
"observed," demonstrations may be "staged" 
which simulate such reality. From the viewpoint 
of the learner these offer much relief. A talk on 



72 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

China is much more interesting if the actual Chinese 
costumes are demonstrated or exhibited. A Hfe- 
saving demonstration may well be a first step toward 
experiment with the " carry s, " which, after criticisms 
and imitation and practice, may achieve the desired 
technique. 

p. Recitation 

Although the function of the class session or the 
teacher-learner-meeting has broadened beyond that 
of recitation — the name still persists. 

What should be the purpose of this "meeting 
together"? Merely to have students recite to see 
if they have performed assigned tasks? 

Certainly "Not," though in practice too often 
"Yes" is the reply. The class session should pro- 
vide opportunity for the discussion of difficulties, 
different methods, implications, for the correction 
of faulty notions; for suggesting how to do things; 
for demonstrations; for practice; for helping others; 
for competition as well as for recitation. 

As already suggested, play, competition, project, 
imitation, demonstration, observation — any or all 
may enter into the recitation period. 

Successful teachers have found that the laws of 
interest demand a varied program or sequence of 
events. However, this daily program or "lay-out" 
should include the following elements among others : 

I. Some device or activity to enlist a concentrated 
attention — such as a story, choosing up 
sides, some outside contribution, some 
activity in which all may participate more 
or less. 



METHODS 73 

2. A brief review not of details, but of significant 

"high points." 

3. Periods where the learner is the questioner as 

well as the answerer. Here difficulties 
may be elicited and cleared up. 

4. Inductive student summaries of important 

items. 

5. How different ones prepared their lessons. 

6. Assignment of next day's work, with sufficient 

time to point a trail into it and suggest 
avoidance of difficulties. 

7. The concept of discussion should be grafted on 

to our old idea of recitation. 

10. Lecture 

Where time is limited or information is scanty, or 
no outside study is done, or where inspiration is the 
objective, or where an argument must be presented — 
then the lecture system may be used with justifica- 
tion — provided certain things are done. 

Many people are more "eye-minded" than ** ear- 
minded," that is, they grasp more quickly through 
the former channel. It is, therefore, sane counsel 
for lecture courses to give the students mimeo- 
graphed copies of what the lecturer desires to "put 
over." 

Also opportunities for questions and brief discus- 
sion should be offered, provided they are within 
reason as to time or content. The smart, adver- 
tising, long-winded questioner should be accorded a 
reasonably quick and relatively painless "squelch- 
ing," but he should not be permitted to destroy the 
practice. The lecture is being given not to amuse 



74 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

the lecturer, but to teach certain things to the audi- 
ence — their reaction, therefore, should be encour- 
aged. Lecture courses are more meaningful if 
references for outside reading can have been done 
in advance — as this makes for homogeneity in the 
class group. 

II. Book Stiidy 

While placed at the foot of the interest list as a 
method of instruction, Book Study is at once the 
most accessible and universal method of self- 
instruction. 

The printed page, a permanent record, inexpen- 
sive, available for use almost anywhere at any time 
by anybody, makes it possible for one to have as 
*'in absentia" teachers the great minds of all time. 

Regular systematic reading of one book a month 
will open to the reader personal growth, and new 
broadening vistas of ideas and of inspiration from 
the use of a small amount of time daily — time usually 
wasted. 

No growing man or woman can afford to miss 
such vital personal growth values. 

Professionally, one can never hope to keep abreast 
of the progress in his field except through systematic 
contact with the professional periodicals or maga- 
zines as well as with new books. A public (or 
traveling library if used for rural districts) library 
card is a ticket of admission to a larger world. 

Scout Instruction 

The genius of Scouting has been in part its use of 
activity methods. Learning through doing has 



METHODS 75 

given the Scout novice the chance to utilize the tides 
of his own instincts and interests. Activities, there- 
fore, of personal and social worth, intrinsically 
attractive to the boy, are also the means of building 
vital social habits. 

Companionship with picked adults is the key to 
character influencing with youth — and companion- 
ship at their interest level. 

Because of the extended use of volunteer Scout 
teachers and leaders, there is grave danger always 
that these may fall into the error of formalizing 
Scout instruction along the lines of traditional school 
method. Scout literature and leader's training have 
tried to guard against such error. 

The influence needsto flow in the reverse direction, 
as Dean James E. Russell of Teachers College, 
Columbia University, has so well pointed out that 
*'it is my honest conviction that our schools in America, 
supported by the public for the public good, will not be 
equal to the task of the next generation, unless we incor- 
porate into them so much as is possible of the scouting 
spirit and the scouting method, and in addition to that, 
fill up just as many as possible of the leisure hours of 
the boy with the out and out program of scouting.** 

Scouting is significant as an interest program 
nationally developed (indeed, internationally util- 
ized), federally protected, and locally available for 
use by local men for local boys. 

A careful reading of its constitution makes clear 
that scouting, while basically and fundamentally 
religious in its tone, definitely delegates to the parent 
church for a homogeneous troop the actual giving 
of religious instruction. It is used alike by^atholic, 



76 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Hebrew, and Protestant religious bodies as an inter- 
est program for holding their boys to the church 
during the critical adjustment years of the "teens." 

In troops with such varied religious membership, 
religious instruction is given by the home and by 
the church of the boys' natural relationship. 

Careful emphasis is laid on the scout giving tol- 
erant "respect to others in the matter of custom 
and religion." 

Religious Instruction 

While one does not have to spend much time with 
youth to discover that normal youth have deep 
religious tendencies if opportunely exercised — yet 
religious instruction of the traditional type labored 
under the handicap of being weak in its interest 
appeal to the "teens." 

Methods traditionally used by the volunteer 
teachers, many of whom were young and ill-trained, 
did much to smother the real interest material in 
which religious education abounds; for religious 
education is concerned with life, than which we 
have no more interesting topic. 

The methods have been too largely formal recita- 
tion with inadequate activities, applications, dis- 
cussions — things for the student to do. 

While precepts are valuable they do not build 
habits. Actual action or doing is necessary to estab- 
lish a habit's nervous connections. 

Sunday Schools, therefore, need service programs, 
Scout "Good Turns," things to do for others, for 
the church, for the community, for the nation, for 
the world, and hence for good and God. 



METHODS 77 

That Sunday School teacher who can provide his 
students with such "things to do" will find his 
interest problem largely solved. 

Then, too, a Sunday School Class, meeting once a 
week on Sunday remains an artificial group and its 
internal bonds are weak. 

The class needs to be relatively homogeneous as 
to age or interests and should play together and 
be a real unit in week-day life. This is precisely 
one benefit of "Boy Scout," "Camp Fire," "Girl 
Scout," "Woodcraft," "Boy's Club," and other 
companionship unit programs — they tend to create 
a natural group for the Sunday School or church 
to use for instruction or service. Some one has 
observed that practically every great movement 
in history has been tied to a great personality. 
Youth are no exception to the interest in persons 
which that statement implies. An abstract prin- 
ciple of religion or a character element or virtue 
has its impact upon youth multiplied many fold by 
its vital connection with a historical or, better still, 
a living personality. 

Nothing is probably so potent in the minds of 
youth as the to-them-often-unconscious influence of 
example. This is especially potent if found in men 
of action. The indirect moral influences upon a 
boy, of a great general, of a leading captain of indus- 
try, of a great inventor, or a flying parson or a base- 
ball "home-run hitter" is incalculable. The sermon 
of fine, unmistakable, moral quality linked with 
great "doing" ability is quite irresistible. 

Companionship with a right-hearted, red-blooded, 
successfully-doing adult is a quite certain method of 



78 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

"catching" character — for as some one has said, 
"character is caught, not taught." 

ReHgious education in certain Protestant bodies 
is developing into a new profession with courses of 
instruction in preparation. Skilled laymen, or 
ministers with special preparation, are being sought 
to head the religious education program of these 
churches. 

This is certainly to be welcomed as marking the 
growth of the policy of relating the church in every 
way to life. Indeed, the educational program of 
the modern church is a finely staffed and diversified 
seven-day educational rendering of service. 

This widening of the active contacts of the church 
in the community may save its sometimes waning 
influence. Churches, as we have said of Sunday 
Schools, need things worthy and attractive and 
socially challenging for their members to do. 

Business Instruction 

While there have been Commercial Schools (even 
at the graduate level), yet the great mass of "learn- 
ing" in the business world has been the "trial-and- 
error," experience method — learning the business 
by "working up" through it. 

That such a method is wasteful is obvious and 
further attested by a heavy labor "turnover." 

Correspondence Courses have in recent years 
come to be very significant ways of giving an in- 
dividual a foundation for advancement. Recent 
developments take the business training courses to 
the corporation offices and plant, and give its ben- 
efits on the time and at the expense of the employer. 



METHODS 79 

Special training for foremen, for salesmen, for 
export, for transportation, etc., are among the types 
of technical subjects, with material bearing on 
human engineering as well. 

Many concerns have felt it necessary to organize 
their own schools for their own employees. 

In recent years the position of Educational 
Director has been created to handle such **up grad- 
ing" efforts. 

This recognizes clearly that the employer is (or 
some one under him must be) fundamentally a 
teacher of his staff, if learning is to be rescued from 
the realm of costly " trial-and-error " experience. 

Industrial Instruction 

The handling of machines and the achievement of 
production are vitally technical things. ** Piece 
production" also places heavy demands on exact 
following of specifications and on close co-operative 
endeavor. The industrial worker must be trained 
as to quality of output and as to labor-saving 
methods to meet the quantity output which is needed 
to make production solvent. 

The foreman, therefore, is fundamentally a teacher 
— or should be. In more primitive stages of our 
industry he was more of a boss — often gruff and 
*' two-fisted." 

With the enormous war-time turnover of 250 per- 
cent annually which characterized our American 
industries (two and one-half men in each job yearly), 
and with a $ioo-$2oo cost of training each man, 
the teaching demands on the foreman become 
apparent. 



8o SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Not only must he be a real leader of men, but he 
must be a real teacher as well. The need for instruc- 
tion in the industrial field is, however, by no means 
limited to foremen or to apprentices. Employers 
and employees need instruction or information or 
both as to their mutual relations and interests. The 
"employer-employee relationship" is a partnership 
project just as truly as is the "teacher-learner proj- 
ect." False economic propaganda have been cir- 
culated and often accepted as plausible until the 
basic economic structure has become so misunder- 
stood as to imperil the stability of industrial rela- 
tions. 

There are several significant systems of "industrial 
publicity" now aimed at "instructing" both 
employer and employee, to the end of bringing them 
closer together toward needed co-operation in 
increased production. 

Suffice it to say, that little progress toward that 
goal can be made until the "minds" of the workers 
are influenced. How they "feel" determines in 
large measure the industrial unrest, the decreased 
production, increased waste, greater number of 
strikes, etc., etc. Employers are becoming more 
and more alert to the welfare of their employees. 
Their "minds" toward their workers must undergo 
change which shall guarantee workers just treatment 
everywhere. 

Education is therefore the only method of making 
progress toward industrial peace. When facts are 
sought — when each party to the productive process 
understands the whole and his relation thereto — 
then 



METHODS 8i 

COULD I BUT KNOW 
Could I but know 

The thoughts that pulsate — vibrate — strong 
Within the mind of one who seems to me all wrong; 

Could I but feel 
With him, his facts — relationships — desires, 
The purpose high toward which his struggling soul aspires; 

Could I but feel 

His sorrows surge — his joy — his thrills of hope 

With which in hidden depths, alone — his self must cope; 

Could I but understand 

His thought — his Hfe — his noble self and true, 
Could I, unselfish, even get his "point of view"; 

Could I ('tis possible), why then 

We'd understand — and Peace and Brotherhood 
Made real — we'd see at once the Common Good. 

Political Instruction 

In general the press does not present both sides of 
issues alike. This has led to the suggestion of an 
endov^ed press which would impartially present 
facts rather than partisan propaganda. Some such 
independent educative force is much needed, 
especially in these days when myriad new voters 
face the ballot and need and want facts about both 
sides of issues. 

The question of pre- voting-age citizenship instruc- 
tion for youth must receive active consideration 
sooner or later, as must some ceremony to mark the 
voter's transit to his new estate. Even primitive 
savage tribes did not so ignore boy instincts and 
interests — they had definite tribal ceremony of 



82 ^SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

induction into citizenship. The Athenian youth 
took the following oath to serve and protect his city: 

I will never bring disgrace to this, my city, by any act of 
dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert my suffering com- 
rades in the ranks. 

I will fight for the ideals and sacred things of this, my city, 
either alone or with others. 

I will revere and obey my city's laws, and do my best to 
incite a like respect and reverence in those above me who 
are prone to annul or to set them at naught. 

I will strive unceasingly to quicken the public sense of 
civic duty. 

Thus in all these ways I will transmit this, my city, not 
only not less, but greater better and more beautiful than it 
was transmitted to me. 

The American Boy Scout Oath involves similar 
social values. 

On My Honor I will do my best: 

1. To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey 

the Scout Law; 

2. To help other people at all times; 

3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and 

morally straight. 

Perhaps the greatest need for instruction in the 
field of politics and government is in the instruction 
of newly elected officeholders — who have had neither 
specific training nor experience. 

The periodic "peaceful revolution" which brings 
new officials into power is such that it would be 
highly difficult and undemocratic to limit candidacy 
to possessors of certain qualifications, desirable as 
that might be. 

Society, therefore, must train these men after 



METHODS 83 

they have been selected. The University of any 
state could easily offer, e.g., a short training course 
for newly elected country treasurers which would 
greatly enhance their eiSiciency. In Bavaria state 
schools for state service have been operated, but 
short tenure of office makes such schools less prac- 
tical here. 

Civic Responsibility 

How may the individual citizen be brought to an 
active sense of his civic responsibility? 

How may he be helped to feel that it is HIS gov- 
ernment, not the government of the administration ? 

While home and church and school can help 
"set-up" certain ideals and can reward certain 
loyalties — yet nothing is probably so effective a 
method to accomplish these ends as PARTICI- 
PATION. 

Whether it be a boy or a man, if he participates 
actively in the thing in question, it is HIS. The 
sense of civic responsibility, then, can be most 
surely developed, like any other human quality, 
through its EXERCISE. 



CHAPTER VII 
"CHECKING UP" RESULTS 

1. Results 

2. How to Measure Results 

3. Conclusion 



85 



VII 

"CHECKING UP" RESULTS 

Results 

Results are the measure of effort. Efficiency is 
the ratio between effort and results. Unless time, 
energy, materials give fruitage in results they have 
probably been wasted. 

Results, then, not only indicate what had hap- 
pened, but such knowledge becomes the basis for sub- 
sequent effort. Mistakes and successes thus detected 
may and should profoundly influence future action. 

The results of instruction are so subtle, so varied, 
often so indirect or deferred, that their detection 
becomes a difficult scientific problem. 

How to Measure Results 

. The results of teaching can never be measured 
unless the condition of the learner previous to the 
teaching is known. Both before and after "taking " 
must be known. The first step, therefore, in any 
such effort to measure results, is to secure the fullest 
possible advance inventory of the student. 

Comparison of this with a parallel final inventory 
will reveal certain of the outcomes of the instruction. 

The actual detail of methods of measuring results 
87 



88 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

must, of course, vary widely with the objectives and 
purposes and content of the teaching. 

(a) Where skills, or the ability to do certain things 

has been the objective of teaching, such 
actual doing shows the direct results. 
Various crafts in wood, metal, leather, etc. 
— driving or adjusting machines — singing, 
typing, playing baseball, painting, etc., can 
be objectively tested by output. 

(b) Where acquiring information or facts is the 

object in view, the old-fashioned (and 
often unfair) examination methods would 
reveal whether or not such information or 
facts could be reproduced at the time in 
question. One testing may easily be a very 
unfair measure of the individual — as ner- 
vousness, ill health, fatigue, sex, worry, and 
multiplied other hidden factors may easily 
mar the value of the test. The nature of 
the questions may also vitiate any interpre- 
tation of the answers. 

Standardized tests and methods are less open 
to such challenge. The recently developed 
"standard" school tests in writing, in read- 
ing, in arithmetic, etc., are carefully grad- 
uated in difficulty and also now involve 
norms of what a person of certain school 
"grade" should do on the average. These 
have been ascertained by testing thousands 
of cases. 

The periodic use of such tests robs them of 
their terror and they give truer pictures. 
They are also so worked out that poor 



"CHECKING UP" RESULTS 89 

teaching of any part of the subject would 
be indicated. 
(c) When habit formation or character enricn- 
ment or cultural or moral results are desired 
— the evaluation is difficult. 

Conduct is of course the natural revealer of 
"inside" conditions and he who would 
measure these subtle outcomes must study 
conduct — immediate, or deferred, or under 
experimental conditions. It is of course 
very desirable that tests as nearly objective 
as possible be secured so as to limit human 
judgment, which, like individual standards, 
will even differ from themselves. 

Relatively little work has been done in the 
field of advance testing in the moral field. 
Here resultant conduct has largely been 
our measure. 

Certain completion tests may be developed 
{e.g., The most vital quaUty of a man's life 

is his . No can others, 

etc.); certain arrangings in the order 
of importance {e.g., rate the following 
in the order of their heinousness: using 
one's employer's time for personal things; 
stealing a ten-dollar bill from some one; 
stealing money from a blind man's cup; 
keeping an excess of change returned; rid- 
ing on a street car and not paying fare — any 

comment you wish to make, make here 

)and 

similar tests may be used. 

The trustworthiness of boys with and without 



go SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Scout training was recent' y tested by Dr, 
P. F. Voelker at Teachers College of Colum- 
bia University, where tests were devised 
which gave the boy a clear chance to be 
untrustworthy and apparently "get away 
with it." These tests gave approximately 
20 per cent improvement under Scout 
experience as the result. 
All of which contains the heartening evidence that 
even moral outcomes may be measured in part. 
It seems fair to affirm that in general — 

1. The ability to use the material of instruction 

and to apply it to new situations represents 
a higher form of instructional outcome 
then mere perfect memory — for, after all, 
life has to be lived as well as thought about. 
Such tests, therefore, are more significant 
than the traditional "repeat," "tell-what- 
the author-says-about " sort of questions. 
Doing is more significant than "telling" 
or talking. 

2. "Going on" represents a higher form of 

instructional outcome than mere perfect 
doing of the immediate tasks. 

3. Unselfish service to common good and the 

really social attitude represent a higher 
form of instructional outcome than mere 
egocentric use of abilities developed. 

4. The subtle but certain personal influence of the 

teacher upon the taught is even more sig- 
nificant than curriculimi. 

5. All instruction should seek as by-products to 



"CHECKING UP" REvSULTS 91 

strengthen our basic institutions — home, 
church, and state. 

6. Teacher and taught should unfailingly practice 

the human qualities of courtesy, sense of 
humor, sympathy, etc. — which practice 
unconsciously gives fruitage in habits. 

7. Every teacher should constantly check his 

work in terms not only of outcomes which 
are often difficult of isolation — but also in 
terms of its immediate interest value. 
Such checks include 

(a) Attendance 

(b) Dropping out — how much and why ? 

(c) Apparent interest. 

(d) Enthusiasm, morale. 

(e) Cooperation, participation. 

(f) Educatee's own suggestion as to benefits 

derived (or weaknesses noted). 

(g) Parent's suggestion as to benefits derived 

or changes proposed. 
(h) Progress of student if checked with his 

ability and side interests. 
(i) Etc 

8. *'Time is the master interpreter" and will quite 

unfailingly reveal strength or weakness 
later when the actual situations of life 
must be met. 

Conclusion 

Teachers prepare and teach; curricula are devel- 
oped; buildings are erected and why? That the 
student may learn, may acquire the race's social 
inheritance. 



92 SELF HELP IN TEACHING 

Consciousness, therefore, of what we are trying to 
help him do and of whether it is being done are sorely- 
needed. 

Traditional educational procedure was indeed the 
parable of a gun — finely polished and cared for and 
regularly fired by its educational gunners who knew 
both the gun and the gun drill more or less perfectly. 

No one worried particularly about the target — 
yet while for seemingly long hours daily the target 
was in the room directly facing the gun and gunner, 
yet his real self was out of sight and, like his interests, 
often out of range — the gun shot much over his head. 
The smoke and the noise, however, seemed real to 
the gunner; things were going well. Little heed 
was given to whether the "ammunition" or the 
"charge" were suited to effect their purpose or 
whether the individual shots hit or not — except 
that annually or semi-annually or monthly the target 
was questioned as to his memory of any "hits" 
made. 

The moral is clear — no matter how excellent the 
message or how well sent — the whole thing hinges 
on: Was it received? And answered? Modern 
psychology and scientific education shift, therefore, 
its emphasis from teachings or teacher to the taught. 

He is really the limiting, the determining factor — 
without his part teaching effort has borne no fruitage. 

This new emphasis is very sorely needed. In the 
past we have built curricula and have trained 
teachers therein. Our new and pressing need is to 
add thereto sympathetic scientific study of the 
learner. 

Morale, interest devices, ways to secure partici- 



** CHECKING UP" RESULTS 93 

pation and "doing" and cooperation — watching 
him and his reactions to ascertain what he "gets" 
and what he reHshes — these are among the things 
we must know next. 

Indeed the big problem of teaching is that of all 
human relations — getting the other person's point 
of view 



INDEX 



Action, 7, 20, 31, 42, 53, 61, 

62. 65, 71, 75. 
Adults and Children, 5, 20, 

25, 42, 53. 54» 61. 
Advancement, 32. 
Aims, 58. 
Application, 28, 41, 42, 64, 

90. 
Apprentice, 70. 
Art and Music, 56, 57. 
Associations, 23, 25, 43, 44. 
Athenian Oath, 82. 
Attention, 5, 6, 49, 52. 
Authority, 13, 24. 

B 

Balanced Life, 30, 63, 66. 
Book Study, 48, 49, 74. 
Business Instruction, 78, 79. 



Civic Responsibility, 83. 
Class Groups, 11, 12, 33, 54, 

62, 74. 
Class Session, 72, 73. 
Communicating with Others, 

3. 4. 51. 
Companionship, 20, 31, 75, 

77, 78. 
Competition, 68. 
Concentration, 26. 
Conclusion, 91, 93. 
Conflicting Problems of 

Method, 63, 66. 
Consciousness, 3, 25. 
Content vs. Form, 65. 
Co-operation, 11, 25. 
Correspondence Training, 38, 

78. 
Cultural vs. Vocational, 54. 



Camp Fire Girls, 36, 57, 77 
Capacities, 5, 53. 
Character, 50. 
"Checking-up" Results (Ch. 

VII), 87. 93. 

Church, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 
35.41,47.75.76,77.78,89, 
90,91. 

Citizenship, 38, 54, 62, 83, 90, 
91. 



Daily Dosage, 43. 
Defeat, 15. 

Democracy, 24, 63, 90, 91. 
Demonstration, 71, 72. 
Direction, 63, 65, 66. 
Discipline, 12, 13, 24. 
Disease, 15, 19, 30, 88. 
Doing, 7, 12, 27, 28, 31, 32, 

50,61,62,65,70,71,78,83, 

88, 90. 
Dramatization, 69. 



95 



96 



INDEX 



Dress, 52. 
Drills, 13, 64, 65. 

E 
Education, 20, 25. 
Educational Hygiene, 19, 20, 

26, 29, 30. 
Employer, a teacher, 79 
Example, 77. 

Experience, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49. 
Experience a costly teacher, 

47. • 
Experiment, 70, 71 
Expression, 13, 14, 24, 76. 



Fatigue, 19, 20, 64, 65, 88. 
Feeling "Fit," 14, 15. 
Form vs. Content, 65. 
Fundamentals of the Teach- 
ing Process (Ch. II), 11. 
Future vs. Present, 34. 



General Nature of Mental 
Life (Ch. I), 3-7. 

General Training, 34 

Getting and Giving Atten- 
tion, 6. 

Girl Scouts, 57, 77. 

"Going On," 53, 90. 

Growth, 14, 24, 52, 53, 55, 56, 
58,61,63,64,65,74,90. 

H 

Habit in study, 26, 27. 
Habits, 14, 23, 34, 35, 38, 50, 

51, 62, 75, 76, 89, 91. 
Hand Activities, 27, 28. 



Helping the learner, 11. 
Hereditary Tendencies, 5, 6, 

36. 
Hikes, 30, 33, 54, 71. 
Home Teaching, 47, 56, 57. 
Homogeneous.Groups, 11, 12, 

33. 
Humorous vs. Serious, 65. 
Hygiene, 19, 20, 26, 29, 30 



Ideals, 50. 

Ideas — their nature, 4. 
Imagination of Children, 69. 
"In Absentia" Teaching, 48. 
Inaccurate Teaching, 48. 
Individual, 6, 11, 12, 21, 24, 

25, 29, 30, 58. 
Individual Differences, 12, 

20, 21, 44, 62. 
Industrial Instruction, 79, 81. 
Industrial Peace, 80, 81 
Influence, 26. 
Initiative, 14, 24, 63, 65, 66, 

69, 70. 
Interest, 5, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 

23, 24, 25, 26, 49, 57, 61, 63, 

72, 91, 92, 93. 
Interesting Boys, 5, 12, 19, 

49. 91, 92, 93- 
Interest Unit, 43, 44. 
Inventories, 62, 63, 87, 91. 



Kinaesthetic, 27, 28. 



Learner, The (Ch. Ill), 17, 
38. 



INDEX 



97 



Learning^ ii, 14, 16, 21, 22 

23, 24, 61, 63. 
Learning by Doing — see 

"Doing." 
Lecture, 73, 74. 
Life Work, 16, 35, 36. 
Logical Organization, 43. 

M 

Manner and Manners, 52, 91. 

Meaning, 4, 5 

Measuring Results, 87, 93. 

Mental Life, 3, 5, 13, 14, 15, 
27, 28. 

Methods (Ch. VI), 61-83. 

*'Mind-Set " 5, 19. 

Mistakes, 14. 

Modern Educational Prin- 
ciples, 61, 63. 

Modifying Interest, 23, 24. 

Moral Health, 30, 31, 50, 76, 
89, 90. 

Morale, 15, 25, 64, 66, 68, 80, 
81, 91. 

Motive, 23, 27, 43, 62. 

Motor Areas, 13, 27, 28. 

Multiple Appeal, 13, 27, 28. 

Music and Art, 56, 57. 

N 

Nerve System, 3, 5, 13, 14, 
15,19.22,27,28,32,33,62. 



Oath — ^Athenian and Scout 

82. 
Observation, 71. 
Open-mindedness, 53. 



Other's viewpoint, 8r, 93. 
Outcomes, 58, 87, 93 
Out-of-doors, 30, 33, 34, 54. 
Outside Study — How much, 
29. 



Parable of the Gun, 92, 93. 
Parenthood, 36. 
Participation, 15, 20, 25, 33, 

83. 
Partnership, 11, 80. 
Passive, 14, 27, 42, 61, 65. 
Personal Touch, 38, 39, 90. 
Physical Health, 29, 30. 
Physical results of mental 

states, 14, 15, 19, 
Plateau of Learning, 58. 
Play, 64, 66, 68. 
Poise, 52. 

PoHtical Instruction, 81, 83. 
Practice vs. Theory, 64. 
Present vs. Future, 34, 64. 
Press, 81. 
Production, 32. 
Professional Teachers, 55, 56. 
Program, 58, 72, 73. 
Project, 43, 44, 63, 69, 70. 

R 
Reaching Others, 3. 
Recognition, 15, 20, 25. 
Recreation, 32, 33, 34, 53, 54. 
References, 74. 
■Regularity of Program, 26. 
Religion, 30, 31, 32, 41, 50, 

75, 76, 78. 
Responsibility, 12, 20. 
Results, 58, 87, 93. 
Rewards, 6, 24, 25. 



98 



INDEX 



Satisfactions, 6, 22. 

Scouting, 29, 30, 36, 57, 67, 
68, 74. 76, 77. 82. 

Self -Expression — Self -Activ- 
ity, 7, 24, 25, 35, 44, 63, 
90, 91. 

Self-Instruction, 48, 

Self-Mastery, 35. 

Self-Realization, 63, 

Serious vs. Humorous, 65. 

Sign Language, 4. 

Social Inheritance, 15, 16,41- 

47, 91- 
Social Relations, 35. 
Sources of Knowledge, 41. 
Speed vs. Thoroughness, 63. 
Standardized Tests, 88, 89. 
State of Mind, 14, 15. 
Study — How to, 26, 28. 
Subject Matter, or Body of 

Knowledge (Ch. IV), 41- 

44. 
Substitution, 23, 24. 
Suggestions, 65, 66. 
Sunday Schools, 29, 30, 31, 

32, 33» 41. 50, 57, 67, 69, 72, 

75, 76, 78, 89, 90, 91. 
Supervised Study, 29. 



Teacher, The (Ch. V), 46-58. 
Teacher and Time Theft, 14. 
Teacher - Learner - Partner- 
ship, 11,25,92,93. 
Teacher's Character, 50 



Teacher's Citizenship, 54. 

Teacher's Fallacy, 49. 

Teacher's Growth, 52, 53. 

Teacher's Ideals, 50. 

Teacher's Manner and Ap- 
pearance, 52. 

Teacher's Recreation, 53, 54. 

Teacher's Temperament, 50. 

Teacher's Voice, 51. 

Teaching based on communi- 
cation, 3. 

Teaching Process — Five Ele- 
ments, 16. 

Teaching Process, Funda- 
mentals of (Ch. II), 11-16. 

Theory vs. Practice, 64. 

Thoroughness vs. Speed, 63. 

Thrift, 32, 34, 37. 

Time, 31, 32, 74- 

Tolerance, 54. 

Training Officials, 82, 83. 

U 
Use, 28, 42, 90. 

V 

Values, 20, 25, 42, 66. 

Variation, 12. 

Visual Appeal, 44, 47, 73. 

Vocation, 35, 36, 70. 

Voice, 51, 52. 

Volunteer Teachers, 57, 58. 

W 

Waste, 32, 41, 53, 74, 78,87. 
Work vs. Play, 64. 
Working with others, 35. 



THE END 



